EC285 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Dot-Decimal Notation, Web Server, Internet Engineering Task Force
Document Summary
Internet standards are developed by loosely organized groups of computer scientists and computer engineers collaborating on so-called requests for comment (rfcs) under the auspices of an organization called the internet engineering task force (ietf) There are a great many rfcs, not all of which are serious in intent. E. g. rfc 1149 is a request for comment from 1990 (since updated) that describes a method of sending ip packets by carrier pigeon. Arpanet relied on packet switching from its earliest days, and the internet continues to do so. A packet on the internet, usually referred to as an ip packet, serves a purpose analogous to that of an ethernet packet on an ethernet, but it is structurally different. E. g. an ip packet may be over 65,000 bytes in length, far longer than the longest ethernet packet. Ethernet packets are generated and read at the hardware (nic) level, ip packets are generated and read entirely in software.
